Aboriginal Air Services goes into voluntary administration

The administrator of Aboriginal Air Services has pleaded for understanding from creditors after the board's decision to go into voluntary administration.

The company has decided to scale back operations from its 29 flights each week, many of which are not economically viable outside the dry season tourist peaks.

Administrator Austin Taylor says the priority now is to stave off insolvency.

"The background and how it got to become insolvent is something that we're looking at, but certainly one of its contributing factors is the withdrawal of one of its major participants, NG Air, who, when they withdrew, took with them a significant number of flying hours," he said.

Mr Taylor says the company will continue to use the pilots it has made redundant, but on a contract basis.

The company shed almost 30 staff after going into voluntary administration.

Mr Taylor says the communities using the company's services will now have to pay for them on a charter basis.

"All the areas are still being serviced but within the different structure so that if we need to charter an aircraft or one of the communities wants to charter to go somewhere then we will get a contract pilot in to fly, which is one of the existing AAS pilots, to fly that run," he said.

"So rather than the pilots being on the payroll permanently, as it were, they are now being contracted in to do contract flying."

Aboriginal Air Services, an Aboriginal-owned operation, flew to destinations in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia.